Final push on to save Kogawa House

The stay of execution onKogawa House in Vancouverruns out this weekend, with a fund to save the house still well short of its goal.

The historic house was the childhood home of Joy Kogawa, author of Obasan andNaomi's Road, the much-loved books about the internment ofJapanese Canadians during the Second World War.

About $700,000 is needed to buy the modest frame house from a developer who wants to knock it down to make way for condominiums.

A group led by the Land Conservancy of B.C. has been trying to raise money to buy the house, so it can be turned into a writers' retreat. It has the support of writers' groups such as PEN and people with an interest in preserving Vancouver's history as well as hundreds of individual donors.

At the beginning of the week, the group had raised $225,000 from individual donations across the country and internationally.

A final push is on this weekend to raise enough to save the house, with afundraising readingplanned at Chapters bookstore in Victoria.

OnTuesday evening, actors read from Canadian literary works such as Anne of Green Gables and Klee Wyck at a Vancouver fundraiser.

The event featured Chief Rhonda Larrabee of the Qayqayt First Nation reading a Thomas King story, Coyote and the Enemy Aliens, parodying the attitude toward the Japanese during the Second World War. Jazz singer Leora Cashe sang a Leonard Cohen song and actor Bill Dow read from Aron Bushkowsky's The Promised Land.

Obasan is Kogawa's tale of how she and her family were turned out of this house and sent to live in an internment camp in central British Columbia. The family never were able to return to the house, which has since had a series of owners and is now in poor repair.

It will cost about $500,000 moreto restore the home and turn it into a retreat for writers with an interest in human rights and multiculturalism. The house would also be open for public and school tours to educate people about the Japanese Canadian experience during the Second World War.

The fundraising group issued a statement Tuesday saying it is concentrating now on raising the first $700,000 to buy the house.

The city of Vancouver has already extended the deadline to issue a demolition permitby one month, from March 30 to April 30.

Requests have been made to the Federal Government, through the Department of Canadian Heritage and to the City of Vancouver.B.C. Land Conservancy executive director Bill Turner says he remains optimistic that funding will be found to support the project.